Randal, You’re Fired.

Those are the words that Donald Trump really should have said last night about 60 seconds after hiring Randal on the season finale of The Apprentice. I stayed up late (for me) to watch the entire episode to see who fared better, Randal or Rebecca. And I was pretty confident, and correct, I might add, that Randal would be the one who walked away with the reward. But his actions, after getting the news, were pretty tasteless

The Donald spends the first hour and forty minutes of the show introducing clips, where we can see how both contestants did on their final tasks, and polling select “fired” cast members. Toral, Marshawn and Alla are three of those chosen to express their opinions. As expected, Toral defends Rebecca pretty passionately, as she should given Rebecca’s defense of Toral earlier in the season (which the Donald also points out to her before cutting Toral off). Marshawn throws her support to Randal, while at the same time insinuating Rebecca is a weak player (interesting given on an episode just a few weeks ago, Marshawn backed out of doing the Star Wars presentation to the Best Buy executives, minutes before their arrival, and Rebecca was left to pick up the pieces). But its Alla’s comments that are so extreme even the Donald cuts her off to make them stop. She’s just downright nasty, saying Rebecca’s weak, unqualified, a poor leader – this from a woman who, before hitting it big in the salon business, made a living giving $40 lap dances and was cited as the reason one of her “customers” took up robbery and murder. Interesting. Now I’m not one to judge, but isn’t it a bit hard to listen to someone with such a colorful background talk about integrity and ethics?

So the show continues, with Randal and Rebecca taking turns pleading their case and doing their best to disparage the other. Randal keeps bringing up his 3-0 track record as project manager, the fact that all the fired candidates support him, that he was the candidate consistently selected to come aboard the opposite team when that opportunity was granted by the Donald and that his educational background and professional experience far exceed Rebecca’s. And it’s hard for Rebecca to dispute this – she had a less successful track record as project manager, was traded by her team when the opportunity to release weaker players was given and she’s only 23 years old. Aside from nicer hair, she doesn’t have much on Randal. It’s clear, at this point, if it wasn’t before, that Randal is obvious choice to work for the Trump organization.

Randal is hired. There’s lots of commotion and screaming on the stage, excitement from just about everyone but Rebecca. But here’s where the show actually gets interesting. After calming Randal down, and forcing him to return to sit next to Rebecca at the boardroom table, the Donald asks Randal if Rebecca is a good candidate. And Randal, who at this point seems to care less, says of course she is, she’s great, blah, blah, blah. To which the Donald suggests that maybe he should also hire Rebecca – what does Randal think about that?

And Randal, the big jerk that he’s about to become, says NO. Yes, he says NO. You can completely see Rebecca’s body language change (although she regains her composure within milliseconds), as well as some confused looks from the Donald. Then the newest apprentice/MIT grad/PhD goes on to say that the show is not called The Apprenti (yes, he used that word - is there any resource that will confirm this is even a word? Do they not cover basic grammar when you’re a Rhodes Scholar?), but The Apprentice. Singular. Meaning that he should be the only candidate hired.

Am I really the only one who thinks that’s pretty unreal? I mean, it’s not like Randal and Rebecca would have to work together – when the two project options were presented earlier in the episode, they both picked opposite ones, so chances are, she would have been assigned to the project Randal didn’t want. And what difference does it make to Randal, after all? He got the job, now will have the prestige of winning the “13 week job interview” and working for Donald Trump – was it necessary to, within seconds, make an incredibly selfish, fairly destructive professional decision that had NOTHING to do with his own career and entirely impacted someone else’s? Randal single-handedly determined Rebecca’s professional fate for his own egocentric reasons. Even if you aren’t a Rebecca fan, you just have to hope, for the sake teaching this man a very important lesson about karma, when the show was over, the Donald still found a place for Rebecca in his organization. Doing what doesn't matter, as long as she's employed (although supervising Randal would be another great lesson in what goes around, comes around). I don’t even know if heartless Alla could have been that cruel.

Wait, strike that – I’m sure she would have done the same thing.

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